MyFootCare: a mobile self-tracking tool to promote self-care amongst people with diabetic foot ulcers

We present the design of MyFootCare, a mobile app to support people with diabetic foot ulcers in their self-care. Self-care is a critical component of care for people with a diabetic foot ulcer as most of their ulcer care is provided away from the clinic. To promote better self-care, we designed a mobile application 'MyFootCare' that harnesses visual analytics and self-report to provide feedback about the healing process. MyFootCare encourages people to take a photo of their ulcer with their mobile phone each time they change their wound dressing. Based on computer vision techniques, users receive graphical feedback on changes in ulcer size over time to objectively track the healing progress. Additionally, MyFootCare seeks to foster self-care through personal goals, diaries, and reminders to enact care. Feedback from three people with chronic ulcers shows that the app builds on existing practices of taking wound photos and that it is seen as useful to track progress and to facilitate dialogue with clinicians. More work is underway to evaluate the use of MyFootCare in a deeper field study.